


I Thought They Came To You On Doorsteps

by Anonymous



Series: Templar Twin AU [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassins vs. Templars, Frye Twins, HeartofGold!Crawford, Homelessness, Sided with Templars, young frye twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It was far too late for Crawford Starrick to have to deal with these tiny twin burglars.
Relationships: Evie Frye & Jacob Frye
Series: Templar Twin AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068098
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24
Collections: Anonymous





	I Thought They Came To You On Doorsteps

"Sir," Reginald announced, entering the office in that quiet, respectful way he always maintained. "Perhaps you should come see this."

Crawford Starrick blinked at his faithful manservant, eyes screaming as he finally began to focus on something other than paperwork for the first time in hours. The clock read just past one in the morning and he couldn't help a flash of jealousy that despite the hour, Reginald still looked as put together and composed as he did delivering the noon tea.

"Unless the Order is crumbling or a Precursor artifact has dropped down the chimney, it can wait until morning," the rising entrepreneur grumbled, releasing a soft groan as his back cracked in multiple places when he straightened from his hunched over stance.

"It's…" And here, Reginald gave an unusual pause, his face twisted in a rare look of uncertainty. "There was a break-in, sir."

Crawford jerked, alarm spreading through his veins. His position in the Order was not quite high (yet) but it wasn't bragging to say that he was influential, due both to his family legacy and his own not insignificant efforts. Those factors alone would make him and his affairs ripe for Assassin interference. "Was anything stolen?"

"No, sir," Reginald assured, stepping holding the door open as Crawford stepped around his desk and bustled out of the office. "In fact, we caught the perpetrators."

Perpetrators. As in plural. Crawford tightened his jaw. "Assassins?"

"Doubtful sir. Though they could be lackeys of the Brotherhood, I personally don't think they've sunken to using children yet."

Crawford stopped in his tracks. Reginald, ever mindful, avoided running into him and sending them both tumbling down the stairs.

" _Children_?"

* * *

  
  


Jacob slipped another bread roll in his pocket, mindful of the scary guards looming over them in the kitchen. The kindly cook, despite her initial scolding and tutting, had sat him and his sister on tall stools and had been steadily slipping them toast and small cakes as a small pot of soup heated on the stove.

Next to him, Evie tried to muffle a cough, and Jacob felt another spike of anxiety. The cough was deep and rattled in her chest, her thin frame jerking from the force. He held her against him, trying to both comfort and warm her, hoping she'd get some relief before they were inevitably turned out into the snow again.

"M'kay," she murmured in his ear, wiping away a bit of spittle that leaked out to settle on her lip. He tore another piece of warm bread, feeding her pieces at a time. The fact that she didn't protest his coddling was worrisome. Evie was always strong and a bit bossy, but it kept the other kids in line and had kept him and the group as a whole alive for a while now. She tried to emulate the woman who they both barely remembered, back before the factory and the orphanage, the one who had sang to them and tucked them in and read to them in the afternoon sun, in a small house with a worn fence and the smell of earth in the air.

Had she been their mother? Their grandmother? He could barely remember, but he remembered how one day she fallen and not gotten up and how they had prodded her and cried for her and then they were no longer eating jam sandwiches at a small oak table but instead gruel and hard bread at long benches with a dozen other children. 

Evie tried her best, tried to teach their small group how to read, read to them at night to distract them from the biting cold and the pain of their empty stomachs. She set up rations, organized sleeping positions so the most vulnerable were the warmest and most protected.

She had held Thomas as his cough got worse and became a raging fever, sang to him as he deliriously cried out for a mother he never knew.

Ensured he was wrapped and covered in newspaper, in a lieu of a proper burial, when he failed to wake one biting morning.

It was when she herself had begun to quietly cough and sniffle and lose some of her already precious energy that Jacob knew something had to be done. He knew that if Evie didn't get food and warmth, she would end up like Thomas, and he would too because if didn't think he'd ever muster the strength to get back up if she didn't.

So he'd staked out a large house, one that was full of guards but had a backdoor with a rusted lock in a small sitting garden that one of the servants often opened a crack to smoke without letting too much cold air in and one day had hastily shoved open and broken the handle. The servant had quickly shut the door, but the damage was done and when Jacob had crept back there last two nights ago, it was still unlocked, the servant no doubt afraid to mention his folly and hoping the out of way location of the door, coupled with the - for Jacob - waist-high snow banks would dissuade intruders.

Jacob had dithered on bringing Evie, but she had insisted coming along, and he had to admit that she was sneakier and quicker than him, even when sick. 

They'd crept through the kitchens, Evie testing the floorboards and Jacob keeping an eye out with their strange - but incredibly useful - second sight, the one that caused headaches and washed the world in a grey haze, but let him see through walls and turned people in colors.

In fact he was so focused on the red figures, he missed the neutral and napping cook in a shadowy corner, who was just waking up to drag herself to her more comfortable bed. But she didn't miss them as they hastily were stuffing bread and cheese and meats in a spare sack.

Jacob glanced at said sack sitting damningly on the table, just out of reach and bulging with tantalizing treasures. The food in there could feed their crew for a week, and might even stave off Evie's rising sickness, at least long enough for the frigid weather to break so they could go out and beg. Then he could buy a tonic or two, and hope she got better, so they plot another heist and—

It struck him in that moment, sitting in a warm house with warm food, how difficult their lives were, how desperate their day to day struggles were. The sheer effort it took just to try to stay alive and not chained to a machine or wrapped in newspaper in a side alley. And there was a good chance that it would all be for naught in the end, especially if they were thrown back out tonight.

It was an overwhelming feeling and Jacob, as much as he tried to be mature and as much as he adamantly denied it, was just a little boy on the cusp of eight years.

So when the cook gently set two bowls of fragrant soup in front of them, just as a tall, stern man walked in the kitchen, Jacob, to his eternal embarrassment, burst into tears.

* * *

Crawford walked in and was immediately struck: firstly by the noise of a child crying, which itself was a rarity, and then by the sight of the would-be thieves.

They were so _young_.

He was used to seeing children, of course. He wasn't above making a surprise visit to his factories, or others that he had a share in and overseeing the production. He knew, objectively, that children were there, working the line, but they were always there only in the peripheral sense. He didn't really see them: they were invisible, scuttling about, not heard or seen.

But something about seeing children outside the factory, in his home...it was an uneasy feeling.

The ruffians were filthy, and he made a note to have the seat cushions burned. The two were skin and bones, and pressed so closely together that he almost mistook them for a single entity. The crying one looked like a boy, but he honestly couldn't tell, and they had the other child (younger sibling, perhaps) tucked protectively under their arm, even as they used their free hand to frantically wipe at their tear-streaked face.

Marie the cook, whose old and stern demeanor hid a bleeding heart, sidled up to him, giving as graceful a curtsy as her large frame would allow. “Good evening, Mr. Starrick.”

“Maria,” Crawford inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I understand you caught the perpetrators?”

“Indeed, I did, sir. Caught them rooting about the cabinets, taking out food, putting it in there sack,” she nodded at a worn and bulging burlap bag sitting on the table.

“So,” Crawford drawled, stepping forward to loom over the children, feeling a guilty pleasure at the way they shrank back. “Breaking and entering, burglary. Both terrible offenses.” He crossed his arms, and pinned them with a glare. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

There was a pause as both children looked at each other, silently communicating before the one that wasn’t crying pulled themself free of the other’s embrace and turned to face him.

“We know it was wrong,” they said, and Crawford realized that they were a she. “We felt we had no choice, sir. We needed food, for us and,” she stopped to muffle several deep, rattling coughs into her sleeve. Her body shook with the force of her expulsions, and Maria shifted uncomfortably, fingers twitched at the sight of the young girl’s distress. “And we can’t say we wouldn’t do it again.”

Well. She was honest, at least.

“Food can be bought with money, from honest work,” Crawford scolded. “If you wanted money you could have found work at a factory--”

“No!” The boy jerked in alarm, gripping his sister tightly. She meanwhile, paled. “No factories!”

There was a dead silence, everyone, even the boy himself, made startled and wary by the child’s outburst.

Abruptly, Crawford realized the absurdity of the entire situation. He was standing in a barely lukewarm kitchen in the dead of night, interrogating two children. He gave an exhausted sigh. “Fine. I am not one to award delinquent behavior, but I am not a cruel man either. You may stay the night.”

“Sir," Marie murmured, sidling up beside her employer and speaking lowly. "The young miss seems to be on the cusp of a fever. 'Tis a cruel thing to toss them out in the morning only for them to end up dead on the stoop tomorrow night."

Had he been a man of less refine, he'd have thrown his arms up in frustration. "Until she is better, then. Good night!"

He turned and stormed away, only to stop dead as two young voices said in unison, "Thank you, sir."

He faltered. Their gratitude was appreciated, yet also baffling. Such joy in the face of simple food and lodgings? That feeling of discomfort swelled in his chest again.

"You're welcome," he responded, pushing away the feelings of awkwardness. He started to turn away again before a thought struck him. "What are your names?"

The boy answered, as the girl's attempts to set cut short by another coughing fit. "I'm Jacob Frye, sir, and this is my twin sister, Evie."

Twins? That explained the closeness. He nodded stiffly. "I, young ones, am Crawford Starrick."

The boy's brow furrowed, but the girl's eyes widened in recognition. He felt a streak of smugness as at least one of the children realized just who they had tried to steal from. "Marie will take care of you." He thought about it--what did one say to children? "Sleep well." Despite himself, he found a bit of warmth slipping into his voice and he beat a hasty exit before he did something common or undignified.

Reginald followed him to his quarters, placing a magically produced cup of tea on his bedside before wishing him a restful sleep. Crawford stripped and changed, slipping between the warmed sheets, downed his tea and willed the ridiculousness of the night's situation to fade from his mind. He had just begun to drift off when an errant thought once again hit him, and he bolted upright.

" _Frye?_ "


End file.
